EVE University Forum

How not to run burner missions

How not to run burner missions

Posted: 2018.12.05 01:06

by Falling Snow KumaMoto

TL;DR can burner missions be solo'd?

I fitted my first non-Praxis battleships recently: a Hyperion (incursions) and a Megathron (L4s). Wishing to use the Mega to grind up LP + standings for a specific corp, I had to jump it >30 gates from my home base. I had laundry to fold anyway. Once I arrived, I pulled a mission from the only L4 security agent there: burner mission! Having no frigates, I had to jump back across the galaxy, experimenting in various usages of foul language to pass the time... but jump into what frigate? Something told me my Tristan would not cut it here.

It was a Blood Raider anomic mission, single target. I read up, saw that EUni likes to do these as small gang fleet practice, while many sources implied (or stated) they could be done solo. Evesurvival said the target was 10km away, a Cruor with neuts (to ~10k), scram, maxes at 380 m/s, does EM/Thermal damage, weak to Exp/Kin damage. My combat character has good drone skills (all 4s + 5s), Cal + Gal frigate 4, with ok shield + rocket skills. I thought: kite-fit AB Worm, warrior IIs + hornet IIs, with a web + Scourge rockets just in case I mess up royally and she gets near.

If I'm generous about my performance, I'd say I lived 30 seconds, but that must count the time I spent sliding the acceleration gate. I landed at about 2km, and by the time I finished locking and managed to start burning off for distance, I was webbed, scrammed, neuted, and hit for an alpha volley that was about half of my shields.

She took a few moments to one-shot each of my Warrior IIs, allowing me to reach about 18km distance, out of web range (but not scram), where I got over 800m/s with AB running. She caught up to under 5km in seconds and then at an insultingly leisurely pace reapplied the web. By this point, I was half armor and nearly capped out, so knew my best hope was a total server crash immediately. Just for fun, I burned AB straight past her, to see what a high transversal speed (about 1k m/s) would do: nought. She hit me every time, never missing a single shot, usually for 400+ damage per volley. My own warrior IIs plus kinetic rockets hit decently for the few seconds I could use them. I had her down to 88% shields at best... I can't even joke that it was "a close one".

This was a sound thrashing. I'm sure I would have lost my T2-fit Vexor in a similar fight, if I could have brought it through the gate. I learned nothing from it except that I should decline burner missions upon offer. This lesson is quite unsatisfying, and I can't just leave it at that.

So I come here to ask: do any of you do these missions? Can they only be done in a fleet with logi?

Re: How not to run burner missions

Posted: 2018.12.05 10:20

by Erwin Madelung

I once lost an Gila to a burner because I didn't checked up the mission on the wiki and usually an Gila is so powerful that you can deal with a lvl 4 mission or at least clear everything that points and warp off. So I know how it feels. That said: Yes you can solo burners but you need to be much better prepaired and Cal + Gal frigate 4 are not really good skills if you fly a Worm (which I assume you did). Before I go on a disclaimer I never soloed a burner but did them in fleets and know the stats and so on (more about that in a bit). To solo burner you need specialised and expensive fits + near perfect skills. Hull skills at 5 are definitely necassary. Only skill allowed at 4 is probably the T2 gun/drone specialisation. But the usual fits simply assume all relevant skils at 5 and even then you might struggle in the beginning.

There is also a link to fitting references. Be aware that some of those fits might be outdated as the ship stats might have changed! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SAv ... dor4mhf0sc leads you straight to the fit against the cruor. They suggest a Wolf which isn't surprising because it has very high natural resists against EM/thermal. The suggested fits costs around 400m, 200m, and 150m depending on which path you want to go. (Edit: The wolf is one of the ships which stats have changed btw but they more changed to the better.)

Very important! Read the introduction to above file! It suggests that you try the stuff first on the test server. This can't be stressed enough.

Re: How not to run burner missions

Posted: 2018.12.05 14:56

by Falling Snow KumaMoto

Thanks for the links, I did not see these. My goodness, I had absolutely no chance with my Worm against that Cruor. I see that I'll be declining burner missions for quite a while, until I can get my SP way higher.

My Worm cost ~75 mil, your loss of a much more expensive Gila grieves me terribly. After quitting the mission, I went back to retrieve my wreck, and it dropped about 1.2 million in modules, total. I know NPCs don't pick up loot, but it still pleased me that the Cruor could get nothing useful out of me.

Re: How not to run burner missions

Posted: 2018.12.05 16:33

by Zeerse Solaris

The anomic team one is easier. I've done these in a kestrel where you stay out of range with a MWD, while jamming out the logi ships. But they do act quite annoyingly and burn out of range and come back in. So I started to bring my alt in with a griffin. I've noticed a lot of the youtube videos seem out of date with different behaviour, so look for more recent posts on how people are doing them more recently.